by the way, thanks Walter for dropping in!
How many of those who were around for the early NLP years ever say one word about the abuses?
One?

They are all hiding to protect their own careers and interests and income.
People need to hear from NLPers from the past, who have a conscience, and who are honest and tell the truth.

I will say this:

Around ten years ago, I went to a public lecture by someone who was a very big cheese
at Esalen, right when Bateson was there.

This person was on a social circuit that included Bandler and Grinder, though I have zero evidence X ever met them.

I attended X's lecture and felt freaked out and darkly obsessed in a way that seemed foreign to my own inner mindset.

Meanwhile, what give me the creeps was that though the lecturer came across as a cold and cruel person, everyone else in that room leaned forward like magnetized needles.

To cite the metaphor, they were 'drinking him in' as though any next second he might utter something that would Solve Their Lives For Them.

I felt I was the only one in the room was wasnt stoned.

The person told story after story after story.

I went out of there with a case of the crawling creeps and nothing in my own history could account for it.

I became active on this message board later that same year, precisely because I wanted to understand what might have happened.

In the years that followed, I examined my own hang ups to see if any of my own projections or neuroses could in any way account for the continued chill I felt.

I learned a lot about myself, but nothing that added up.

However, something else happened.

The Anticult began to show us how the methods of covert conversational trance induction are being used.

Then Walter1963 joined us and began describing the early years of NLP with Bandler and Grinder.

I read all this, began to suspect that X was using some form of conversational trance. He told all those stories and had such a strangely uniform effect on most of the people in that audience--they all acted stoned on him.

As chance had it, X reappeared years later and gave another lecture. I decided to go and observe him and studied up once more on what Walter1963 and The Anticult had written here.

This time X told many of the same stories. I was observing him, hawklike.

This time, most of the people in the audience became drowsy. One woman fell right asleep. She was in the front row and flopped limp, with her notebook slipping from her fingers.

A man seated in the row ahead of me went to sleep sitting up, his head tilted back, his mouth opened and he began snoring. Others were rubbing their eyes.

And...I found I was also falling asleep, despite knowing that this guy was doing trance induction. He was gazing at us quite cooly, and showed no embarassment at how we were falling to sleep. Most lecturers would have been embarassed and suggested a stretch break.

Try as I might, my eyelids kept clamping shut on me. I pinched myself, ground my feet into the floor, kept reminding myself this guy was using "tech".

My handwriting turned into a scrawl.

After twenty minutes, I left. As soon as I did, I was bright and alert again.

Friends, NLP is that powerful. Here I was, keyed up, awake and alert and ready to ID this persons trance induction techniques.

Even I was getting eyelid spasms and becoming somnolent.

And what was amazing was the uniformity of response in both cases.

Lecture #1--people were hyperalert and devotionally focused and agog

Lecture #2--people were mostly falling asleep, or drowsy.


NLP is that powerful.

And unlike old fashioned knock out drops, it leaves no trace for toxicology tests to pick up.

Well, I guess the genie is out of the bottle now and won't be going back in anytime soon.

That was the best? bit of the Secret movie for me, the one time I watched it, the big blue genie that Deathray conjured up.

Exposing yourself to Ericksonian hypnosis / NLP outside the therapeutic context makes one _more_ susceptible to its covert use.

I was attracted to someone who is involved with people who use these techniques covertly; I found our metaphorical dialogue just lovely. Until a year later, when I figured out I'd been subject to covert hypnosis.

My view is: steer clear. If you do get involved with an LGAT, find your way to a qualified exit counselor.

Corboy's post reminded me of a book I read this past summer: Oran Canfield's Long Past Stopping: A Memoir. In it he describes how his father Jack whipped his audience into a frenzy. I felt very uncomfortable reading the effects this man had on others.

Does Jack use these techniques? Perhaps the question should be is there anyone out there in the self-help, new age, political circuits who doesn't use NLP? If it's that effective and if so many people are already using it, I would imagine there would be pressure to use these techniques to be able to compete.

My other concern is are these techniques only useful if you're in the same room together? Can someone use them in their writing or say, over the phone or in a DVD or CD?

Someone tried to sell me on Anthony Robbins several years ago and I could only read a few pages of his book before giving up because the writing was that bad. I had a similar experience with The power of now and something written by Ron L. Hubbard. (I can't remember the name of Hubbard's book.) I also vaguely recall watching a short clip with Tolle on the computer. He spoke very slowly, in a monotone. Every so often he'd stop and smile. I felt myself becoming lethargic and shut it off.

I'm a little creeped out by the fact I'm likely being influenced and don't realize it. Yes, I realize it's out there everywhere in stores, ads, etc., but I would like to be better informed so I can protect myself. I would prefer not to give anyone else rent free space in my mind.

The thing is, the person who gave those two lectures never said, up front, that he would be using any sort of trance induction.

Had he said so at the beginning, I would have left the room.

It was the awful effect I had during and following lecture #1 that caused me to get involved with this message board.

It was when The Anticult published analyses of how story telling can be used as a vehicle for trance induction, and Walter1963 who jointly supplied what I needed to understand what this fellow had been doing.

The power of it all was, even when I attended Lecture #2 and could see that X was using trance induction (and recycled some of the stories he had used 9 years earlier!) and I was watching his body language, noting voice inflections, the audience behavior and his verbal output -- I was still getting sleepy, along with most of the audience.

What made the difference the second time around was, knowing this guy was unethically using trance technology--and knowing I needed to just get out of there, the way firemen tell you to get out of a smoke filled room and let them put out the flames.

The good thing is that I knew I had to get out of there and did so.

'firemen tell you to get out of a smoke filled room and let them put out the flames.'

Firemen tell you that because more people die from smoke inhalation than from being burnt alive--not because fire-fighting is necessarily a heroic or dangerous-to-trained people occupation. Yeah its a risky job but there isn't a fireman alive who doesn't know and accept that.

Me, I'd set off the alarm then grab an extinguisher (which I have luckily been trained to use--all types) while waiting for the boys in big boots to arrive.
I just love it when the cavalry turns up in the nick of time, them blues and twos.



'My other concern is are these techniques only useful if you're in the same room together? Can someone use them in their writing or say, over the phone or in a DVD or CD?'

Yes, and do.
If you're really worried try reading some classic children's fiction, like Alice in Wonderland or Mary Poppins, writers use many of the same techniques to create a fantasy land. (they just don't try to trade mark them and flog them at inflated prices to all comers)

There is nothing new under the sun.
Here's an oldie but goodie, read the lyrics--pure poetry, or something:

[www.youtube.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2011 06:35AM by Stoic.

Wyatt Woodsmall was the only NLPer that ever criticised NLP and the behavior of it's so-called leaders. I never heard squat from the Andreas's or the staff at NLP Comprehensive as you put it "They are all hiding to protect their own careers and interests and income".

And they do damage since they refuse to police their own. I'll give you a example, when I took my practiticioner course, there was one young man around 18 years of age who had been raised in a brutal cult environment. One could tell he was emotionally scarred. Now one particular week two well known NLP trainers(Tim Hallbom and Suzi Smith) decided to fix the boy. They brought him up to the lecture platform and did their thing. Well, within a few days the boy's condition worsened horribly. He become violent and unstable and was eventually forced to leave the course. And no he did not get a refund.

Tim Hallbom and Suzi Smith screwed this boy up big time. Both were licensed therapists and they didn't give a shit. I wish the boy would have gotten a lawyer to suit NLP Comprehensive.

All in all, don't expect any current practictioer let alone a big name trainer to come out and say their "field" has severe ethical issues and that a lot of what they teach is garbage that doesn't help anyone. The only ones who will repudiate the garbage that goes are those that leave it.

'Exposing yourself to Ericksonian hypnosis / NLP outside the therapeutic context makes one _more_ susceptible to its covert use. '

OK, Questions_ 2, answer me this--how does the 'therapeutic context' provide this magic blanket of protection from the deleterious results of the covert use of this tech?

How does that _ more_ susceptible work when exposure to most dangers makes one more aware of the necessity of being on alert to danger?

Hi Stoic,

Being aware of the language of trance induction doesn't mean that one has to have experienced trance. The other point is that with an ethical psychologist hypnotherapist, trance is used in a consensual way, in specific and limited applications.

Here are some articles by Dr. Steve Eichel: [en.wikipedia.org] , who works with former members of high-demand groups [cults]:


From: [www.carolgiambalvo.com]

"Prolonged Trance States

"In the office of the professional hypnotist, hypnosis occurs within a time-limited, place-limited context. In cults, the exact opposite may be true. The environment is controlled and often seems to have been engineered expressly for the purpose of maintaining and prolonging trance. The cultist is often subjected to sleep and nutrient deprivation, and he or she is taught methods of trance self-maintenance. These methods may include near-continuous praying and chanting, speaking in tongues (glossolalia), prolonged meditation, repetitious scriptural readings or recitations, and other monotonous, repetitive activities. Most published accounts of cult life indicate that cultists are admonished to continuously concentrate on the words, teachings or actual physical experience of the cult leader. Failure to maintain trance is often followed by considerable guilt and self- or cult-inflicted punishment. Cultists are usually taught that any doubt or deviation from the cult's rigid doctrine is evil or Satanic, or in some other way catastrophe-invoking. Similarly, any prolonged interest in people, activities or subject (e.g.. Music, art science) that does not involve a strong concurrent focus on the cult is belittled and/or strongly discouraged; thus the cultist's attention is always divided, and trances become reinforced and automatic, like a habit."

From: [www.dreichel.com]

"Most hypnotists and therapists are concerned with finding ways to overcome resistance, not with ways of building it up. Yet the ability to resist influence may be an important skill to develop, especially in view of the many groups and individuals seeking to covertly modify behaviors, thoughts and feelings.

[...]

"As our understanding of hypnotic communication and our ability to subtly influence behavior increases, it may become the obligation of the professional persuader (the hypnotist, the psychotherapist) to assist clients to develop their resistance to manipulative groups and individuals."

Best,

Questions_2